


Prepare for Trouble, Make it Double

by thesaltybitch



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Phantom of the Opera Fusion, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Angst, Crossroads Deals & Demons, Cute, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Falling In Love, Fluff, Ghosts, Halloween Prompts, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Scarecrows, Teacher-Student Relationship, Werewolves, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:20:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 12,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26763487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesaltybitch/pseuds/thesaltybitch
Summary: 31 fun, cute prompts for the month of October!**rated for specific prompts. all prompts are G unless otherwise indicated in the title*****Update: Russian translations for specific chapters have been made available thanks to Cinnamonious on twitter! Links are all in Ch1 because I cannot work AO3, but I will link the available translations in the author's note at the beginning of the corresponding chapters.***
Relationships: Brunnhilde | Valkyrie/Sif (Marvel), Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 52
Kudos: 36





	1. Poisons, Potions, and Propositions

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [От вампиров - солнце, от оборотней - серебро. А что одолеет тебя?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28901088) by [WTF Thorki and Hiddlesworth 2021 (WTF_Thorki_Hiddlesworth_and_Co_2020)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_Thorki_Hiddlesworth_and_Co_2020/pseuds/WTF%20Thorki%20and%20Hiddlesworth%202021)
  * Translation into Русский available: [Нити](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28901214) by [WTF Thorki and Hiddlesworth 2021 (WTF_Thorki_Hiddlesworth_and_Co_2020)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_Thorki_Hiddlesworth_and_Co_2020/pseuds/WTF%20Thorki%20and%20Hiddlesworth%202021)
  * Translation into Русский available: [Вызов демона и другие плохие идеи для первого свидания](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28901718) by [WTF Thorki and Hiddlesworth 2021 (WTF_Thorki_Hiddlesworth_and_Co_2020)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_Thorki_Hiddlesworth_and_Co_2020/pseuds/WTF%20Thorki%20and%20Hiddlesworth%202021)
  * Translation into Русский available: [Яды, зелья, озаренья](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28901808) by [WTF Thorki and Hiddlesworth 2021 (WTF_Thorki_Hiddlesworth_and_Co_2020)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_Thorki_Hiddlesworth_and_Co_2020/pseuds/WTF%20Thorki%20and%20Hiddlesworth%202021)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hola! Buenas noches! 
> 
> I picked these prompts off a google image search and the one I liked the most is a really old, 2017 prompt list on tumblr from [Carrie Autumn](https://carrieautumn.tumblr.com/post/165918058845/october-writing-prompts).
> 
> One prompt per day. One prompt per chapter. Will PROBABLY be all Thorki, but will update the tags as I go in case I'm inspired.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> **Russian translation:** [Яды, зелья, озаренья](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28901808)

The little bottles were mocking him. And to think he had once thought they were the most extraordinary works of art as a child, staring up at them from where he sat on the kitchen floor while his mother brewed in the kitchen—barefoot and effervescent, her long, blonde hair wisping about her face in curls that grew more buoyant and frizzy the longer she worked. His father would always sweep her into his arms at the end of the day and say fondly that if she worked any longer her hair would lift her from the ground and he would never have to spend for a broomstick ever again. Thor loved the sound of her laughter that would echo across the beaten wood floors, even after the thousandth time.

Of course his mother made brewing look easy. She never seemed to hesitate when she spun about, plucking each ingredient from it’s place without hardly a glance, never double-checking because she was certain. She never did what Thor was doing now, which was barely registering the taste of blood as he continued to chew a hole into his cheek trying to remember which herb he needed. It was just between the two and he might have simply taken his chances except that if he chose wrong, the fumes would kill him. Instantly. His own hair, yellow like his mother’s, was beginning to mirror hers in that it had slipped from it’s tie and was beginning to cling to his forehead and dance about his cheeks. He smoothed it back with rough palms and then dragged his fingers down his cheeks with a frustrated noise as he stared at the shelf in front of him. The recipe was sitting right there on the island behind him, but he didn’t _want_ to consult the text, he wanted to do it from memory.

“You look like you’re about to have an aneurysm.”

He nearly leapt from his skin and whipped around. “Loki!” 

His friend looked bemused, standing there in all his grungy, slightly tired glory–an aesthetic that he had carried with him through pretty much all his various stages until now. Today it was a pair of combat boots, jeans that had been deliberately torn in a couple places, and an oversized flannel that was probably Laufey’s if the shoulders were anything to go by. Laufey had the build of a linebacker and Loki, well, he clearly must have taken after his mother.

“Yes, me,” Loki replied drily. “Who else would it be?”

Thor frowned at him as he tried to calm his racing heart, coaxing it down out of his throat so he could breathe. He had never been accused of scaring easily, but Loki had a way of always being the exception to the rule. Of course that may have been because it was too early for him to be here by three quarters of an hour.

“It’s not even five,” he said when he could speak again. 

Loki’s eyes flicked up at him briefly while he began extracting multiple heavy, ancient tomes from a rather inadequately structured bag that looked like it had seen better centuries. “They let us out early.”

Thor raised his eyebrows. “You mean _you_ let you out early.”

Loki smiled and dropped a book the size of Texas on the counter. Dust flew into the air. “What did I tell you about minding your business?”

That made him snort. They hadn’t been out of each others’ business since sixth year. 

“You have got to stop charming him,” Thor warned. 

“I did nothing of the sort.”

“You can’t use the same trick three times in a row, he’s gonna find out it’s you.”

“I don’t know where you come up with such absurd delusions of me,” said Loki, arching an indignant brow. “Eir is old. He’s asleep _without_ my help five minutes after the door closes. Trust me.”

“Historically a terrible idea.”

“And that’s why you love me,” Loki said, tilting his head in a distinctly Loki fashion that made him look like both an angel and the most annoying sentient being this side of the planet.

It made Thor’s heart beat dizzyingly fast, but all he said was, “Uh-huh, whatever.”

He left his friend to set up the rest of his workspace and turned back to the supply shelves, careful not to let his gaze skim over the answers on the yellowing pages he’d carefully opened earlier. The decision about herbs was still a problem and now all eight of them starting with ‘H’ were beginning to blur together in his head, but now that Loki was here an entirely different problem was taking up his valuable processing power.

Since middle school he and Loki had been fast friends. Thor was the new kid in town and although he got along great with everybody, he always did, he connected best with the moody boy who sat near the back of class and regularly got in trouble for burning his pencils with a simple heating charm. He liked the twinkle of chaos that lurked in Loki’s eye and Loki seemed to welcome him when he was testy at best with anybody else. They were fast friends. Soon they were getting into all kinds of trouble together and sooner after that they were inseparable. There were sleepovers, and deep talks at midnight about anything and everything, countless bike rides, and holidays spent at alternating houses. Thor wasn’t quite sure when he started feeling differently, or indeed when he started noticing things that would never have crossed his mind before, but now he couldn’t stop noticing the way his lips moved around words, or the way his fingers danced across his laptop keyboard, or how he liked to chew his left thumbnail whenever he was really concentrating, never the right.

They worked for some time. At one point Loki charmed the record player to put something on in the background and soft music filled the air, but otherwise they were silent. 

Thor felt himself grow more and more uncomfortable by the minute, but he busied himself with prepping another brew, pausing in the middle to make tea. He set a hot mug of peppermint in front of Loki, who immediately drew it close and wrapped his perpetually cold fingers around it as he pored over the text in front of him. It didn’t escape Thor’s attention that he’d tucked his dark hair behind his ear where a week-old helix piercing sat. Loki had dragged him into the shop before he had a chance to say yes or no and gleefully watched as he turned green when the needle pierced his flesh. It still made him queasy to think about, but it did suit him. 

“Do you have something you want to say?” Loki asked, not looking up as he turned the page. 

“The piercing looks good.”

“It better,” said Loki, giving him a long-suffering look. “I can’t sleep on that side and it’s killing me.”

Now that they had broken the silence, Thor was desperate to continue talking to him. 

“Are you going to stay for dinner?” 

“Uh, probably. Don’t I always?”

“Yeah, just checking. How’s the tea?” 

“Fine.”

“What are you reading?”

“Oh my god!”

Thor hadn’t realized he was peppering his friend with rapidfire questions until Loki looked up at him, scandalized, his thumbnail still part way in his mouth. His expression would have been the same if Thor had suddenly decided to sprout a tail and four new arms in front of him. 

“Sorry,” Thor said quickly. 

He ducked back over to his side of the room to check on his cauldrons. A soft thump told him Loki had shut his book. 

“What are you doing over here, anyway?” Loki came to peer into them as well, his nose wrinkling curiously. “What the hell is that?”

“Shut up.”

“No, really!” Loki laughed. “It looks like shit, what have you been doing this whole time?”

The answer to that was a bit complicated and Thor found himself suddenly unable to tolerate Loki’s proximity and the smell of the crisp mountain air that clung to him from his walk over. He mumbled something incoherent and made a show of turning back to the supply shelves. 

“Look, I’m sure it’s fixable,” Loki said from behind him and he could hear him flipping through the pages of his brew book. “Did you not follow the recipe?”

“I was trying to do it without help,” said Thor morosely, lacing his fingers behind his neck and letting his elbows hang while he struggled for words.

“You could have just asked, stupid,” Loki said. “Here.”

He wasn’t quite sure how it happened. All he knew was he turned around and his arms were suddenly full of Loki and they were kissing. Thor’s mind went blissfully blank. All he could feel was the subtle warmth of Loki’s body pressed against him, the worn flannel beneath his fingers, the softness of his lips…

Then Loki pulled away, just enough to look him in the eyes, breathing a little harder than usual, his eyes sparkling but a little uncertain as they flicked back and forth trying to gauge if he had made the wrong move. Unable to find words, Thor leaned forward and kissed him again. And again. And again. And then one more time until Loki was laughing.

And it was such a beautiful laugh. 

“Is this what you were thinking about?”

Thor kissed his nose, and then his forehead, reveling in the feeling, the freedom to do so. “Definitely not.”

Loki smiled smugly. “I can read you like a book, Odinson.”

“ _Oh._ Helichrysum,” Thor breathed as his memory suddenly flared back to life.

Loki frowned. “What?”

“I need to add helichrysum.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy October!


	2. Moon Cycles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sdlkvjsldkjfsldkjf FUCK i almost spaced doing this. ON DAY TWO. 
> 
> this is why i never commit to anything.

*

The forest was damp with a faint drizzle. Loki’s converse made squelchy sounds as he tried and failed to move quietly along the muddy forest floor. He’d been soaked through hours ago, but he was so close. He’d never been this close. 

A rumbling noise brought him to a halt. He hardly dared to breathe as he pinpointed the sound and crept forward. Just between two trees ahead he could see the moonlight reflecting off a deep, rich pelt of the _something_ he’d been following for the better part of the night. There was only one thing that showed itself to the pattern of the full moon, and Loki had been hell bent on proving they existed for almost five years now. 

The deep, humming sound that filled the air stuttered to a halt, replaced by a labored breathing. Loki tucked his hair behind his ears and turned his cap around so he could see. His heart lodged in his throat as he reached out to steady himself against the thick trunk of a tree and peer around it. And there, in the moonlight, looking confused as hell and stark naked was—

_"Thor?!"_

*


	3. The Legend of Hag Hill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I WROTE this yesterday but my scoliosis was acting up and I ended up laying on my floor trying not to cry for like, 4 hours, so I didn't get around to posting. The point is this was written in a haze of pain and a little confusion so if it doesn't make sense to you, it doesn't make sense to me either. But I kind of like it anyway. 
> 
> Enjoy!

*

“So, visiting, huh? What brings you in?”

Val took a large swallow of the beer in front of her and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. People weren’t usually so observant, but she supposed it wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility that the bartender had seen her backpack and noted her muddy boots from her earlier hike. Still, she wasn’t particularly keen on being forthcoming about her intentions in town. 

“What makes you say that?” she asked. 

The bartender’s laugh was a deep, booming sort of sound and it bounded off the old, wooden walls of the bar with enthusiasm. The sheer volume of it made her start, but it was a warm laugh and free of judgment. He seemed like a solid sort of fellow—friendly, but also thick and broad with shoulders the size of pumpkins and a head full of so much blonde hair that if it weren’t braided back, she was certain it would simply take over his face.

“Don’t be alarmed, people are always stopping by, searching for the meaning of Hag Hill,” he said the last part with a bit of theatrical finger wiggling, his eyes dancing, a bright blue set deep within the creases of his weathered face.

“What he means to say is that visitors aren’t uncommon to us,” said his coworker, a much slighter, more sallow looking man with a severe face and dark hair. His expression was friendly enough though, if a bit aloof. “It’s not hard to pick you out after a while.”

“That obvious, huh?” said Val drily. “Do you ever get tired of entertaining treasure hunters?”

The dark one shook his head. “Keeps us in business, for one,” to which the blonde one nodded in agreement. “And it’s never a dull chat, to say the least.”

“I suppose that’s one way to look at it.”

“So what’s your interest?” said the blonde. If she squinted she could just make out the name tag that read ‘Thor’ buried in the crease between his left deltoid and pectoral muscle. “Treasure? Architecture? Mythology?”

“A little bit of everything, actually,” said Val. “What do you know about it?”

“Not much, frankly,” said the dark one. 

“Don’t mind him, my husband is quite the skeptic,” said Thor with a profound fondness that collected at the corners of his eyes. Val wondered how she’d missed the little matching bands tattooed onto their fingers. 

Thor leaned forward, a conspiratory gleam in his eye, and proceeded to tell her all about the hill that had a mysterious stone throne at the top of it and the warrior woman who put it there. 

Val let him finish, adding in a polite nod or enthusiastic sound in here and there. It was quite a tale, and coming from Thor it was particularly enchanting because he told it with such gusto. Val enjoyed the story, finished her beer, chatted a little more, and then retreated into a corner booth. 

“That story gets weirder and more lovely every year.”

The smile crept onto her face before she could stop it. She glanced across the booth to find Sif, leaning across the table, sheets of dark hair gleaming as it fell around her shoulders. The moonlight that shone through the window fell uninterrupted, through Sif’s shoulders, across the worn wood.

Val put her pen down and reached out to put her hand on Sif’s translucent one. She’d always been able to see and touch her, despite the fact that nobody else could. “Was it enough?”

Sif’s eyes shone with emotion. “You know there’s no way to tell.”

“They’re still talking about you, though! I think the dark one really believes, despite what he says.”

“Take me for a walk?” Sif asked gently.

Val felt her heart lift as Sif pulled her upright and dragged her out the door.

*

Thor watched the two women leave the bar at last and took a moment to watch their linked hands disappear from view.

“Do you think it’s working?” Loki asked, coming over to stand next to him.

Thor looked up at the themed drink names, the sword, and the old ads of Hag Hill that peppered the walls. 

“Well, she still doesn’t realize she’s dead, but they seem happy?” 

Loki kissed him softly and laid his head on his shoulder. “Happy is a good start.”

*


	4. Apple Orchard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ngl, this one wasn't my idea. i was pressed for something to write for this prompt and my partner told me to write a story about a scarecrow in an apple orchard who loves apple pie.

*

Autumn was the best. As a scarecrow, they had seen all kinds of weather and in every one of the seasons—rain, shine, snow, sleet, and drought. They had their favorite weather patterns of course (big thunderstorms with lots of rain) but autumn was the best because it meant _apples._

They didn’t need to eat, exactly, but they _liked_ to eat apples and autumn brought both their favorite weather and their favorite food. And once or twice per week they would wait for the sun to sink, when most of their day was done, and climb down their little pole and march through the orchard towards the smell of warm apples. 

Every week there was a pie in the windowsill. It was a neat windowsill—old, a little bent in places where it should have been flat, but functional and clean. The little wooden slats across the panes of glass were painted a brilliant red, and the shutters a deep, rich brown. The house itself was quaint, a little cottage of exposed brick and a well-kept front porch. The scarecrow visited it once a week and enjoyed a whole apple pie, sitting on the neat little porch, watching the sun set behind the orchard.

Tonight they stopped at the edge of the orchard, caught off guard by the sound coming from within the cottage. In all their time protecting the orchard, they had never seen the person who owned the cottage, presumably the one who made the pies. It would seem that a giant of a man who seemed barely to fit through the little yellow door lived there. The scarecrow crept closer, tilting their head to see a little better through the tiny window. The man was bronzy, broad, and jolly, it seemed, and when he turned in such a way that they could see his face, he had sun-weathered cheeks that looked like the apples that grew in his orchard. And he was singing. 

The scarecrow crept closer, intrigued by the sound of his voice. The smell of baked apples grew stronger and as he neared the open window, the man appeared quite unexpectedly with the pie itself in his large hands. He looked at the scarecrow, smiled widely and said, “Ah, I've been waiting for you, my elusive pie thief. It’s about time we met.”

*


	5. Beneath the Mask

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if implied teacher/student relationships bug you, this isn't the one for you my dude

*

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

Loki's tone was slightly reproachful and he immediately wanted to pull the words out of the air and shove them back down his throat, but he felt it was at least justified in this instance.

“Fandral is not the kindest man, but singing is his only livelihood,” he added, sitting down at his vanity and beginning the careful process of taking off his stage makeup. “What do you imagine he would do if he could not sing? Hm? You know, he may die of sheer inconvenience. Also people will begin to suspect me of witchcraft if strange things continue to happen to the people whose roles I continue to assume.” He said the last bit archly, a little miffed that he’d already been interrogated by a few choir members and one of the managers had begun asking questions.

“Do not fret, the affliction will not last.” 

Loki leaned forward onto his elbows, a breath of relief sliding past his lips as his teacher materialized in the mirror before him. The soft lighting of his dressing room cast odd shadows on his features, accentuating the silvery twist of scarred flesh that gripped his jaw and disappeared beneath the bone porcelain mask that covered half his face. He was quite handsome and the mask became him, not that Loki had ever held this opinion out loud.

“Do you promise?” Loki asked him softly, his reproach quite forgotten. 

The flesh side of the face smiled back at him and it was like gaining the favor of the moon and the sun all at once. “Yes, Loki, I will be surprised if he does not sing his nightly arias in the shower.” Then added with no small amount of pride, “You sang well tonight.”

Loki’s chest swelled. “Your instruction continues to help.”

“And you continue to improve.”

Upon later reflection, he should have asked more questions. Truly. He thought he knew his Angel—oh, he knew he was a dangerous man, there was an unmistakably raw power that rolled off him in waves—but he had never once considered murderer to be an aspect of him. Never once imagined how far he might go to secure the roles he so deeply believed Loki deserved. So when the chandelier came hurtling down from above and crushed a man, Loki saw it happen in slow motion, tracking the movement of the chandelier to the beat of his heart and the exact moment when his blood ran cold with realization.

His friends tried to console him, but he disentangled himself from their soothing words and consoling hands, fleeing for the one place he had ever felt safe. And the one place he may not be safe anymore. 

But who else to run to? 

There was no one. He had always been alone until he found his voice.

“Tell me it wasn’t you,” he cried, closing the door behind him and sinking to the floor, pressing his back to the sturdy wood and collecting his knees into his chest. “Tell me!”

The room was silent. Racks of feathers and sequins glittered at him, seeming to shudder with the phony, muted humor of polite society, laughing at his naivete. Once he had longed to be the occupant of this dressing room, the one that belonged to the lead voice of the opera house, and yet it was damp with a sick heaviness tonight, not draped with luxury as he had once thought. He wanted to burn it all. 

_Murderer._

“Why do you cry for me, child?”

Loki drew great hiccuping breaths. “The chandelier—I thought—did you?”

There was a silence that dragged against each passing second and it felt like death. It felt like somebody was scooping his insides out and leaving his body there a shell. Suddenly the tears were done. Over as soon as they had started. He stood and brushed himself off and went to the mirror. 

The Angel was already there, looming in the seemingly infinite darkness behind the mirror, the stark white of his mask floating as if suspended in a void. Large, impending, and silent, as if awaiting judgment.

“Show me,” Loki said, and not a single syllable trembled as it left his lips. “You told me when I was ready, I would know who you are. Show me.”

The Angel’s face twisted into something that once may have been a smile, but time had transformed it into something truly terrifying. A terrible, dangerous smile. 

“Who are you?” Loki whispered, reaching for him.

“I am your angel,” said the mask, retreating from the mirror and yet the darkness seemed to grow as he became one with it. “Come to me, angel of music.”

There was a soft click and a thud and the mirror dropped into the ground by a couple inches and began a slow pivot inward, revealing a cavernous hallway made of stone and just beyond, a familiar, monstrous silhouette.

“Come see what lies beneath the mask.”

He beckoned.

And Loki went.

*


	6. Summoning Demons: and Other Bad First Date Ideas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Russian translation:** [Вызов демона и другие плохие идеи для первого свидания](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28901718)

*

It took him ages to get the picture. That was the worst part of this whole crossroads ordeal, if he were being quite honest about it. Not only was it a hassle to combine all the necessary components, but who had physical pictures of themselves anymore? Nobody. The answer was nobody.

But he’d gone and printed one out, paid the exorbitant price, and now it lay nestled lightly on top of a charred bone and some graveyard dirt. He looked at it grimly before shutting the box with a soft _thunk_ and crouching to move some dirt out of the way with a small spade he had miraculously found in the back of his car. The dirt was tough and packed and as he dug he began to seriously question why he’d even committed to this in the first place. 

And it was cold as shit out. 

“Real smooth thinking, Thor,” he mocked himself as he chipped away at the dirt. “What if you thought about things for more than half a second next time and didn’t end up _stuck. Doing. Shit. Like. This._ ”

He tucked the little box into the shallow well he’d dug and shoved the dirt back over it and stood, clapping the dust off his hands and looking around. If nothing showed in the next three minutes he wasn’t sticking around to watch his breath mist into the cold, navy sky while he froze to death. There was no ritual for this, either a demon felt like coming to help or they didn’t. 

He didn’t wait long. As he scanned the surrounding darkness a tall, sharp silhouette took shape just a couple yards from where he was standing. His heart leapt. 

“Hell yes, I didn’t know if you would show,” he said, trying to keep too much excitement from leaking into his voice. 

“Slow night,” the demon said and his voice curved around the words like a caress. He was wearing a black suit with edges that cut through the night and made him look more inhuman than his face suggested. His movements were silky as he put his hands in his pockets and strolled a little closer, revealing soft curls, impeccably styled and tucked behind delicate ears. He stopped a little over an arm’s length away and his red eyes flickered and a frown appeared on his face. “Well, you’re not the usual desperate customer. What could you possibly want, little fledgling?” 

The words died in Thor’s throat as those eyes stared him down. They were odd, ancient and infinite, but lacking in the kind of judgment that he had expected to find there. 

“Well, it’s kind of embarrassing,” he ground out admittedly.

The demon arched a neatly sculpted brow. “You do realize I’ve been doing this for a couple thousand years? Think of all the stupid wishes I’ve had to grant, just think about it...” The demon trailed off looking at some distant place over Thor’s shoulder, his face twisted in a polite sort of horror. 

“What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever been asked for?” Thor asked, curiosity piqued.

The demon seemed to come to and looked at him with something like amusement in his eyes. “That falls under the demon-human non-disclosure act, I can’t tell you.”

“Bullshit,” scoffed Thor. “That’s not a thing.”

“It’s not, but I’m still not going to tell you,” said the demon smugly.

“Why not?”

“Because my job is to grant wishes, my dear fleshbag,” came the exasperated response. “Are you going to give me your soul or what?”

Thor hesitated a beat. The demon sighed and made a great show of checking a very expensive looking watch on his right wrist. 

“Alright, I’m bored.”

Thor squared his jaw and said, “I need a date for my brother’s wedding and I didn’t want to use Tinder.”

There was a moment of stunned silence. And then laughter. Deep, belly laughs that rolled up from the demon’s feet and all the way up his spine and out his mouth. Thor flushed hotly. 

“You know what, fuck you, forget I fucking asked,” he snapped.

“No, wait,” the demon gasped, getting ahold of himself as Thor turned to stomp back to his truck. “I’ll do it. God knows I haven’t been to a messy, celebratory human event in a long time, I could use a change of scenery.” 

“Nah, I’m good—changed my mind. Thanks, though.”

“Oh come on,” the demon argued. “You’ll love me, I’m actually one hell of a date.”

Thor considered him for a moment, more than slightly enjoying the shift in power. “Yeah? What makes you worth the trip downstairs?”

“I’ll do it pro-bono,” the demon offered. “My treat.”

“Mmm, it kind of sounds like you’re a buzzkill,” said Thor.

The demon gave him a withering look. “Listen, sunshine, one night with me, and you’ll wish you’d put a ring on it and signed on the dotted line. Are we doing this or what?”

“Yeah, we’re doing this.”

“Excellent. When is the wedding?”

“Tonight,” said Thor, folding his arms. “In like, an hour.”

“Damn, cutting it kind of close there, don’t you think?” asked the demon, walking over and looking him over with a critical eye, taking in Thor’s boots, jeans, and leather jacket with a pinched expression. “We’ll have to match, of course. You can’t go to a wedding with me looking like that.”

“What do you mean with you? You’re going to a wedding with me.” 

“Do not argue with me, Tinder hater, it’s out of your hands now,” said the demon, holding up a slender finger. “Think of me as,” he waved long arms around gracefully as he searched for the words. “Your evil fairy godfather. Now, get me to a house with a bathroom so I can work.”

Thor didn’t have a response for that. He got into the truck and started the engine as the demon plucked open the passenger side and got in, looking significantly out of place in his perfect suit with his perfect cheekbones and his perfect accent. After a moment the demon sighed.

“What am I supposed to call you? Peasant?”

“Does the box not tell you who I am?” Thor frowned. 

The demon pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Maybe it’s a good thing you were going to sell your soul for a date instead of Tinder.”

“Why?” 

“Because you _suck_ at this,” said the demon bluntly. “You haven’t even asked me my name.”

“Oh fuck, yeah, what do I call you? Lucifer? Crowley?” 

“How original,” the demon drawled. “Just call me Loki.”

“Loki it is.” Thor grinned and gunned the truck into reverse.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	7. A Different Kind of Graveyard

*

Loki’s hands were still slick with blood when the call came through. He raised his forearm to look at it as it ran, blinking and vibrating gently as the logo for the agency hovered just above his skin. He left streaks of red across the transparent graphene as he declined the call. As long as he was wearing it they could find him and there was nothing they could say to him that he didn’t already know. He’d known his time was up, it was just a matter of getting his affairs in order.

Thor’s face flickered past in his mind and he shook his head as if to rid himself of the image. The wind was picking up and he needed to get off this rooftop. 

He retracted the thin swords and they stacked back up onto themselves and up his sleeves where they were stored out of sight. Then he picked his way across the bodies strewn across the roof and made his way to the edge. 

A quick glance at the time projected on his arm told him it would be thirty seconds before building security burst through the door and discovered the mess he’d left them. Best not to be here when they did. 

With a soft shudder and the sound of slick, oiled metal, he took a quick two steps and leapt off the edge and let the currents lift him up and away from the carnage. 

It smelled good when he got home. Thor had something on the stove and it instantly brought tears to his eyes. He sniffed and blinked rapidly to rid himself of them and began stripping off his armored jacket, the plates that ran along his thighs and calves. Thor must have heard him because he was there when Loki straightened, looking as Thor as he had ever been. Steadfast. Reliable. 

He looked like home.

“It’s time, isn’t it?” Thor asked him gently. 

It must have been in his face, then. He knew better than to hide this from Thor, and yet he still tried every time.

“They called as soon as I finished up,” he said quietly, stilling as Thor came closer and tenderly brushed the rogue strands of hair from his face, his large hands coming to cup Loki’s jaw and stroke his cheeks.

“You know I will always be here when you are ready,” Thor murmured. “I would wait a thousand lifetimes to be yours.”

Loki closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the fierceness in his lover’s voice. He would never ask this of him and yet he couldn’t stop him from doing it either. Thor deserved a constant companion, it was true, and yet Loki was certain that he would never find anyone who loved him more deeply than he did.

It was he who led them to the room this time. According to accounts of his previous life, it varied whether he was able to do it or not, but this time he was ready. Inside the room there were twenty one memories of him, each unique, each with a specific story, each one of them Thor’s lover. He didn’t remember being recycled. They programmed that out of the process and he simply woke in the facility and they gave him an assignment. It was the way of the High Council and their Derelicts were designed to be compliant. Sometimes he was in a body for several years, sometimes a matter of days, it all depended.

“How will you do it this time?” he asked, tucking one hand against his chest as he walked the perimeter of the room, using the other to skim his fingertips along each stolen trinket as he passed. 

“I always bring you here,” Thor said with a sad smile. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”

Loki turned back to the gold ring that looked like a pair of wings. “Promise me you won’t be sad?”

“Ah, I’m a veteran at losing you,” said Thor easily, but his eyes said otherwise. “I promise to cry for an hour tops.”

It was the worst joke ever and despite the horrible feeling in his chest, Loki laughed, and it wasn’t until that moment that he realized his own tears had been coursing down his cheeks.

“Hey, come here,” said Thor gently, taking him into his arms and walking them from the room. “Let’s get you out of this graveyard, hm? At least have dinner with me before they take you away.”

Loki allowed himself to be dragged from the room. And although he sat through dinner, and laughed and talked with Thor, the dread crept into his lungs until he could hardly breathe from it. But he had to be strong. 

He had to be strong.

*

The thing about waking up from being recycled was the cold.

Not that Loki ever remembered it. 

His consciousness swam to the groggy surface as a hiss and a pop sounded in his ears and a disembodied voice sounded overhead. 

“Welcome home, Derelict Laufeyson. Open your eyes.”

He followed the voice prompts, extracting himself from the cool gel layer that encased him inside a sleek, body-sized pod. As he stepped out he could see hundreds of identical pods lining the entirety of the vast room, some of them empty, some of them full, some of them open and engaging in a self-cleaning cycle from the previous occupant. 

A recycling room.

And a graveyard.

Of sorts.

The kind of place where people came to life, but left behind all they had ever been before. A slice of pain whipped through his brain and the thought vanished. 

He armored up, absorbed the instructions that filtered into his ear from the disembodied voice, and shrugged into the straps of the back sheaths that would hold the swords he had chosen to carry. 

As he stepped out into the sun, the light pierced his retinas and the sharpest, cleanest image of a man with a kind smile and bright, warm hair filled his mind. 

And then he was gone. 

And Loki had a job to do.

*


	8. Phantom Limb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: loss/sadness

*

He thought he knew pain. 

Much of his life he’d spent experiencing pain. Some was simple, stupid pain, like realizing he was wrong after being so certain he was right. Some was physical pain, like the bumps and bruises he got after training with his friends. Some was even pain he thought he would never recover from, like losing his parents—a pain he had never afforded the luxury of proper grief. 

He was a fool to have been so naive.

If he had ever felt pain before, it was nothing to what he felt in the moment—like somebody had reached down his throat and shredded his lungs, then squeezed his heart until it ruptured inside his chest. It left him there to sit and relearn how to breathe, as if he hadn’t just been stripped of the most vital pieces of his body. Of his soul. Nobody told him what it was like to lose the one most precious to him.

And now he felt nothing. 

Before, there was rage. Before, there was unfathomable sadness, so much he thought he might drown in it.

Now, he knew nothing but the blank, empty wall he stared at and obsessed over what he had to do next.

He was going to kill Thanos. 

And then he was going to get his brother back.

*


	9. Stitches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Russian translation:** [Нити](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28901214)

*

The door slammed open without warning, gracelessly and clumsily just like the person who had done the slamming.

Loki’s gaze snapped up to see his brother and pressed his lips together so hard it hurt. “What _do you want?_ ”

He looked like hell, and if anybody else had burst into his rooms the way Thor did, Loki would have promptly called the healers. But Thor spent approximately ninety percent of his waking hours beaten, bruised, and covered in blood. This was unfortunately the norm. Today, half broken armor hung from his shoulder, askew in a way that told Loki he had attempted to remove it himself, which meant he’d also avoided his squire, which insinuated many things. It must have been quite the brawl. 

“Look, I know this isn’t a good time—” Thor’s giant, calloused, dinner plate hands were already up and facing outward in apology. 

It wasn’t the first time he’d wished looks could kill. “No, it’s not. It’s never a good time, and yet somehow you’re always here. In my space. _Talking to me._ ”

“Oh please, it only takes you a couple seconds and then nobody is the wiser. Come, brother.”

“No. You never ask and you never thank me when I’ve given up time and effort on my part to help hide your idiocy from your own parents.”

“Loki, please?” Thor pleaded.

Loki regarded him with no small amount of testiness. He had half a mind to refuse his request and send him jaunting off to the healers where he would have to make up some flimsy excuse for why he looked like he’d lost a fight with a bilgesnipe. 

Instead, he closed his book with a pang of regret and sighed. “Come here.”

Thor’s grin was blinding. Loki scowled at him. He made short work of the armor, deftly releasing the leather straps from their brass buckles and sliding it from Thor’s meaty shoulders. Then he began the delicate work of removing whatever strips of cloth were still clinging to his torso. To continue calling it a shirt would have been overly generous given it’s shredded state. 

“What was it this time?” he asked, carefully peeling back the patch that had stuck to a particularly nasty wound on his abdomen.

Thor’s breath came out in a hiss. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Loki snorted. “Yes, clearly. You are the image of triumph.”

“Minor wounds,” Thor said through gritted teeth. “Easily ignored.”

“I can see that.”

He pressed his fingers to the firm muscle of Thor’s chest and sent a gentle pulse of seidr through him, monitoring his vitals and parsing out the worst of the wounds and how deep they were. The magic told him the abdomen was the worst of it, superficial as it was. He would need sutures. 

“Can’t you just glue me back up with your magic?” Thor whined when he said as much. 

“Minor wounds only, you know that,” Loki intoned deftly, “and I'm concerned your definition of 'minor' is getting rather loose. Hold still.”

Thor stiffened beneath him and held his breath. Healing was quick work, especially with cuts and bruises, but it was hardly comfortable. Loki went as gently as he was able, pressing his fingertips to Thor at each wound site until it had closed over.

“You’re much more gentle than Eir,” Thor murmured, a fondness creeping into his voice that made Loki feel like he was the only one who ever heard it.

“Yes, well, we can’t all be private healers with a single patient,” he said dryly, threading gut onto a needle and piercing Thor’s flesh without warning. It was always easier to do it when the patient wasn’t expecting it. 

“All done,” he said after a couple minutes. He clipped the gut and applied a bandage to the area and then set to work putting away his supplies.

When he looked up again, Thor was standing and moving about experimentally, twisting this way and that, windmilling his arms around like a born jackass. He was so young and so athletically inclined in a way that Loki had never been, and yet he did things like lunging his way across the room as if it were normal behavior. It was so hard to look at him and think of him as the future king of Asgard when he constantly insisted upon looking like...well, _that._

“You won’t tell father, will you?” Thor asked him anxiously, rising to his full height after his final rep. “He is aware of my adventures, of course, but I wish for him to remain ignorant of certain things.”

Loki dropped into his chair, regarding him neutrally, “You know I don’t talk to father.”

“Yes, yes, of course. How stupid of me.”

Silence. Loki turned back to his book, leafing through the thick pages to find his place, effectively dismissing him, but—

“Oh, and Loki?”

“Yes?” 

Thor looked hesitant, but then took two large strides over to the side of Loki’s chair. His fingers caught the tip of Loki’s chin, tilting his face gently upward and catching him in a soft, earnest kiss. The book fell to the floor as Loki pressed up into him, chasing his lips before he could stop himself. 

Thor grinned into him. “Don’t ever say I never said thank you.”

Loki snorted and pulled him down for another kiss.

*


	10. 10. Knight Terrors **explicit**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***sexually explicit***

*

Loki woke up in a cold sweat with a scream on the edge of his lips. It took him a minute to adjust to consciousness after believing with his whole heart that he had been being chased by _something_ that wanted him dead. As he did, he found he was barefoot, crouched on the stone ledge of the arched window of his bedroom, the shutters flung wide open to show the dizzying drop he had come very close to experiencing. Snow fell gently outside as his fingers tightened against the stone and he carefully climbed back into his bedroom.

He should have anticipated this and simply asked the court physician to get him another draught of sleeping potion, but the man was busy and he hated to trouble him with something as banal as night terrors. His eyes fell upon the empty bottle at his bedside and a sick feeling churned in his stomach at the thought of going back to sleep without it.

It took fifteen minutes of pacing for him to just grit his teeth and do it, but in the end he always ended up at the healer’s door no matter how long he agonized over it. He dressed himself and slung a heavy cloak over his shoulders and slipped from his bedroom into the even colder passages of the castle. He drew the cloak close. The physician quarters were down three levels from where the knight’s chambers were located and he made the journey relatively quickly, the terror of his dream lingering in the quickness of his steps and haunting him in every shadow.

A warm glow spilled from beneath the door when he got there, indicating its occupant was probably awake. Loki hesitated a moment before knocking with a surety he didn’t feel. Immediately, there was a thump and then the sound of something possibly breaking and then a couple garbled curses before the door wrenched open.

Thor was young for a court physician, there had been quite a squabble over his merits upon signing him into permanent employ at the castle because how could one so young be any good at anything—but they exaggerated greatly. Loki had been expecting to inaugurate a child of sixteen, if the rumors were to be believed, and yet he was surprised when it turned out to be a breathtakingly attractive man who looked to be in his thirties with perhaps the first lines of care beginning to appear at the corners of his eyes and mouth.

That had been four years ago and Thor looked mostly the same with the wan, overworked exhaustion that lay behind his cheery blue eyes and the exception of a single streak of white hair that ran from his temple down to his shoulders with the rest of his hair. Tonight, however, he looked wildly out of place in the freezing winter climate, clad in a rough undershirt that hung stiffly from his thick, broad shoulders and, odder still, sporting a light sheen of sweat on his bronzed skin. 

“Loki? What the devil are you doing here at this hour?” Thor asked. “Come, before you let all the cold air in.”

He stepped back and Loki quickly stepped over the threshold into the sweltering heat of his quarters. A giant fire roared in a great, stone basin that sat in the center of the room, the flames licking up the sides and shooting into the air until they nearly reached the peak of the ceiling. 

“What are you—?” Loki began.

“Ah, nevermind that, now,” said Thor dismissively, waving a hand at it with a practiced flick and the flames shrank instantly to a more manageable size. He hefted the door back shut and knocked the lock into place and turned around with a concerned frown on his face. “Are you alright? Why are you here?”

“I wasn’t sure where to go. I—” he hesitated. “I had another incident.”

Thor swore. “Did you not take the draught I gave you?” 

He spoke while ushering Loki to a seat by the fire, somehow already prepared with mugs of tea, one of which he pressed into Loki’s hands. 

“I ran out,” Loki admitted, taking the mug gratefully. “I didn’t want to trouble you for more.”

“My dear knight, what on earth do you think I’m here for?” Thor said, a touch exasperated. “Here.”

Thor left him by the fire and went to a wall of shelves crammed full of various bottles and tinctures. It looked hideously disorganized to Loki, but Thor seemed to have a system that made sense to him because his fingers danced along the labels until he reached the one he wanted and plucked two bottles from among the rest. He stomped back over to Loki and held them out in one giant palm.

“Thor, I—”

“If you don’t take them I will be very cross,” said Thor warningly. “It’s best if you take them now, anyway. They are due to be rebrewed, but that should last you for around three months.”

Loki took them and said quietly, “Thank you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Thor, sitting down and coaxing the fire a little higher with a nudge of his foot. “I always have some on hand.”

Loki smiled into his tea, congratulating himself on making the decision to come see him. He already felt more relaxed. In many ways, Thor had been the best thing that had happened to the court in the last handful of years. The last physician had been old and a little outdated in his methods. There was some talk of his soundness of mind near the end, but Loki considered him simply a cranky old man who needed to retire and was grateful when he did. By contrast, Thor was young, vibrant, and eager to learn and experiment with new methods, which pleased the king greatly. He also brought new life back to the courts. There wasn’t much that could spoil the man’s good temper and he always had a joke or a song or a tale on hand, much to the delight of the children.

But more than that, he and Loki had become fast friends. Loki could hardly remember a time when Thor wasn’t in his life.

“Now, tell me,” said Thor gently and his voice brought Loki back to the present. “What is it that affected you so greatly that it brought you to my door in the dead of night?”

It all came rushing back. The cold, the dark, the pure terror. Waking up to realize he had nearly thrown himself from the top of the castle in the midst of his panic-filled dream. The chill crept back up his spine and along his arms as he recounted it and was surprised to find how easily the words came when it was Thor who was hearing them.

Thor’s face changed only once during the story, losing it’s stoicism briefly when he mentioned waking up on the ledge of the window, but otherwise listened intently, pausing him every so often to clarify. When he was done, the healer drew a deep breath, leaning forward to place his elbows on his knees to look into the fire pensively. 

“You’re a knight,” Thor said eventually, looking at him. “What are you so afraid of that it follows you into your dreams?”

Loki swallowed and set his mug down on the side table and drew his hands back beneath his cloak. He was afraid of a lot of things. He was afraid of going to war, afraid of failure, afraid of losing any one of the handful of people he had come to care about. 

“I don’t know,” he said out loud. “But every time I close my eyes I eventually end up somewhere awful.”

Thor reached over and laid a giant, comforting hand on his knee. “Loki, sometimes the mind learns to protect us in ways we don’t understand. Other times it serves to warn us of things we may not be aware of or may not even remember. I can give you something to cover the symptoms, but I’m afraid that’s all I can do.”

Loki nodded a bit miserably, having expected as much. “What is your advice, then?”

“Find your fear,” Thor suggested. “Understanding can help to ease an anxious mind.”

Loki laughed humorlessly. “And if I’m not ready to find it? What then?”

Thor smiled. “Then I will be here for whatever else you might possibly need.”

Loki looked at him and was suddenly overwhelmed by him. The kindness in his expression, the unselfish way he offered his time and his talents, the willingness to take him, a knight who should have been braver than anybody, into his home in the early hours of the morning just because he’d had a _nightmare_.

To his horror, tears pricked his eyes and he had to look away. He’d spent his whole life trying to be strong, he wasn’t sure how to react to kindness in the face of vulnerability. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Thor was already there next to him, the warmth of his body was almost as intense as the fire itself as he tentatively reached an arm out. Loki took the invitation and leaned into him, taken off guard by how strongly he desired to be close to the other man, to be held in his arms until all thoughts of darkness melted away. Thor held him fast, one arm curled around his arms and chest protectively, the other cradling his head ever so gently. 

“Why are you so good to me?” Loki whispered as he breathed in the soft, muted scent of skin and sage. "Are you this good to all your patients?"

After a beat, Thor said, “Not exactly.”

Something about the way he said it made him look up. Thor was gazing at him now, steadily, pointedly, and almost a little warily as if he was about to cross some line he hadn’t intended to cross but it was too late to go back. He straightened. 

“What do you mean?”

“Loki, when I say I will be here for whatever you might need, it comes first and foremost from the oath I swore and my duty as a physician, that much has been true since the beginning,” Thor said slowly. “But I’ve also grown...fond of you. And I admit that some of that now comes from a desire to see you well and happy in a way that goes beyond the constraints of my position.”

_Oh._

Loki blinked at him as his words settled. A million thoughts raced through his mind, not a single one coherent enough for him to settle on, but all of them clicking into place—their fast friendship from the start, the casual bar nights, the times when they lost track of time talking and laughing, hurried to resume their duties. It took his breath away that Thor had been there in front of him the whole time. It had never once crossed his mind that he was everything he’d never dared to wish for, and yet here he was, right under his nose. 

“And if I’ve grown fond of you as well?” he whispered, hardly daring to breathe.

Something crumpled in Thor’s expression, as if the last of his resolve had finally lost it’s bearing, and he crushed Loki to his chest for the second time that night. A fiercer, more fervent thing than before. Loki grasped back at him, seemingly unable to bring him close enough for how much he wanted him.

“Loki, my beautiful, darling knight,” said Thor, rough with emotion. “You have no idea how many times I wished I could hold you. Every time you came to me with nightmares, or returned from abroad, from some battle—”

Before he could get any further, Loki untangled himself from the embrace only briefly so that he might climb into Thor’s lap, straddling him, and take his handsome, careworn face into his hands and kiss him deeply. He didn’t know what love felt like, but if he were to guess, he would guess it went something like this. 

His hands brushed across Thor’s beard and into the softness of his hair, down to the curve of his neck and the firmness of his chest. He kissed him again, his hands becoming bolder as they wandered across Thor’s body. He wanted to explore him, understand him, know him better than anybody ever had, and Thor let him, his breathing sharp and hard. His hands skimmed across Loki’s back, up his shoulder blades and down to his hips and atop his thighs, his fingers contracting as if he wanted to grip him with all his strength and was holding back. 

“What do you want?” Thor murmured with his lips at Loki’s ear. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want you.”

It was all the encouragement he needed. He swept Loki up with a single, muscular arm, supporting him as he flipped them over onto the soft upholstery, posting up with his free arm by Loki’s head. Loki gazed up at him and knew how he must look, drunk on him with his lips a little swollen, his cheeks flushed from the heat of the room. He pulled Thor down, craving his touch. He wanted him everywhere, he wanted to feel his hands against his skin and find out if they were soft or calloused, to feel what his lips felt like pressed against his chest and belly. 

A desperate sound escaped him as he guided Thor’s hand to the hem of his shirt. Thor understood immediately, his fingers flipping underneath and almost hesitating before lighting against Loki’s heated skin and drawing a sharp intake of breath from him. His eyes flew wide and suddenly it was taking too much time. 

He pushed Thor away and stripped off his shirt himself, reaching for Thor’s—hungry for the sight of him. Hungry to look at him in the light of the fire with nothing left between them. Torsos bare, Thor was the one to make a growling sound at the back of his throat and push him gently back onto the overlarge seat, following him down to press his naked skin against him. 

Loki wanted to scream at the sensation, but he kissed Thor instead. Crushing their lips together in a desperate search for friction and plying his lips apart until he had access to that sweet, sweet mouth. Thor’s hand slipped between them and began to palm him, rubbing him with firm, sure strokes until Loki was afraid he might come on the spot. 

“No,” he gasped, pushing him away panting heavily. “Not yet.”

He sat up and reached for the buckle at Thor’s waist, making quick work of the fabric there and tearing it down just enough to give him access. He was woefully out of practice, but his mouth watered at the sight of Thor, fully bare and aroused. Thor groaned as he took him into his mouth, working slow at first to remind his lips and throat what to do. He felt Thor’s hands come to rest on his hair, moving him rhythmically as he began to speed up. And just as he felt he could take it up a notch, he released him and basked in the whimper it elicited from Thor. 

“I want you,” he said, licking his lips and turning over. “You can do this, right?”

Thor nodded shakily and did a quick spell. Loki felt himself relax and all but impaled himself on Thor, biting his lip as he slid along the shaft and all the way down to the base. They halted for a second there, breathing as one while Loki acclimated. 

And then Thor’s hands snaked around, one curling up to press against his chest and the other dipping low to take him into his hand. Loki’s head fell back onto his shoulder, little stars beginning to pop at the edges of his vision as Thor held him fast and jerked him off, thrusting into him with hot, heavy grunts. 

Loki writhed on him and closed his eyes and lost himself to the vision of them together. Thor inside him, their skin pressed against one another, bright with sweat, both of them on the verge of ecstasy. And then Thor’s hand pulled and twisted and he saw stars, a deep cry ripping from his throat as Thor pushed him over the edge. He could feel himself pulsing against Thor’s hand that guided him through orgasm until he collapsed backward onto him. 

Thor turned to bite into the crook of his neck as he chased down his own pleasure, bringing his hands down to grip Loki’s hips, slamming them down onto himself until he came with a low groan. He rode it out until he was shaking and then, gasping they sank into the couch and lay there, tangled together as their breathing came back down to normal.

Loki traced nonsense shapes on the back of Thor’s hand, already dreading the long, cold path that would take him back to his quarters and his chilly bed. Thor shifted behind him and with a sleepy flick of his wrist, cleaned them off and summoned a blanket. 

“Stay with me tonight,” he murmured.

Loki’s heart leapt. “Really?”

“Yes, well, you can’t jump out any windows if you’re sleeping here next to me,” said Thor, pressing a warm kiss to his hair.

“Alright then.”

Thor sighed contentedly and drew him close, and Loki drifted off to the sound of his low, even breathing. 

And for the first time in many years the shadows left him alone to sleep.

*


	11. Chilly Weather, Bloody Sweater

*

Thor was sprinting. He was flat out, final stretch of the 800m, balls-to-the-wall sprinting. His converse seemed to barely even hit the pavement as his legs churned beneath him. At one point he got going faster than his body could keep up with and he fell, but he tucked and rolled at the last second and was on his feet again without even missing a stride. His arm and chest smarted from the two other times he’d fallen and not been quite so lucky, but the pain was nothing compared to the beast that was in pursuit. He took a sharp turn down a dark alleyway and heard the beast barrel past with a howl, unable to slow down enough to follow him immediately through the narrow passage.

Good. He’d earned a couple seconds at least. A dilapidated sign hung limply from a busted post at the end of the alley, mildly suggesting that there was “no thoroughfare.” Thor darted past it, leapt into the drained irrigation canal, and scrambled to tuck himself beneath the little overpass that connected one side to the other. He hugged his knees to his chest and tried hard not to think about the blood he could feel sticking to his sweater and oozing down his abdomen. Adrenaline would keep him upright for just a while longer while he figured out what the fuck to do. His hands shook violently as he pried his frozen fist open and tugged the little ball of crumpled paper from within. It was the spell he’d used, or at least attempted to use, and he was desperately hoping there was some kind of reversal on it because gods knew he was not gifted or educated enough in witchcraft to know how to wing it.

Loki was going to _eat him_ for this.

“Fuuuck,” he breathed when the page had nothing to offer him. He flipped it back and forth a couple times, hoping something would magically appear for him, but the page remained the same. 

Why did he always do this to himself? He wanted nothing more than to be like Loki, two years his junior and already so competent and self possessed. Loki never fucked things up like he did, he had never accidentally released a hellbeast and pelted across town, screaming bloody murder for everybody to see and nobody to understand why. Hellbeasts were only visible to those who practiced the arts, and while Thor “practiced” the arts—emphasis on the air quotes—Loki _practiced_ the arts. Full stop. Period. 

And for the record, he had never meant to release the beast, it just sort of happened. But that was just the problem with him, things always seemed to “just happen” around him. Maybe he should just try to focus on soccer instead and forget being a witch. 

But there would be time to wallow in his endless misfortunes later because what he did right now kind of, sort of dictated whether or not he made it to later in one piece.

There was only one thing left to do. He had to ask Loki for help. With a heartfelt curse, he shoved the page into his pocket and peered around warily. The coast seemed to be clear and so, peeling himself off the freezing concrete of the little underpass, he willed his stiffening legs into motion again and made a mad dash for home.

*

Back at home, Loki had just finished a hot shower, an indulgent skincare routine, and finally slipped into a set of matching, cozy pajamas. He was settling down in the pillow laden nest of his four-poster with a bowl of popcorn and a weighted blanket, ready to watch the next slasher horror movie on his Halloween flicks list when Thor practically fell through his open window. He watched in mild irritation as his brother landed with a heavy “ _oof_ ” and struggled painfully to his feet.

“Hell on earth, Thor, was the front door too much trouble?” he groused, setting his popcorn aside and throwing the blanket off his legs. He padded over to his brother and grew more concerned the closer he got. 

Thor didn’t scare easily, but he was white as a sheet and shaking, bent over as if in pain. Loki felt his irritation vanish. 

“What did you do?” He asked sharply, and then he saw the blood. It was a miracle he hadn’t seen it before now, but Thor’s sweater was covered in it, splattered across an arm, his shoulder, and positively soaked in the torso. He snatched his hands back in horror. “Oh my _god_ , what did you do?!”

“I fucked up,” Thor’s voice shook as he tugged something from his pocket and held it out in a trembling hand. “Loki, I fucked up.”

Loki took one look at the bloodied page and knew what had happened. He moved past Thor and shut the window with a snap and then rounded on him. 

“Can you get to the attic without me?”

“I—”

“Can you?”

Thor swallowed. “Yes.”

"I will meet you there. I will need my bowl, the dried lavender from last week, and the book of spells. Go! We don’t have much time.”

He shooed his brother out the door, pausing only out of concern as he watched Thor struggle up the stairs, limping and clearly in pain. Loki shuddered the image from his mind and hurried to the kitchen. Of course this would happen when mom and dad were out of town, why wouldn’t it? He snatched ingredients from the shelves in the kitchen, grabbing things he knew he needed and some he wasn’t sure of. Best to be prepared. 

Up in the attic, Thor had prepared what he requested and was curled against the wall, looking dazed. Loki dumped his stash onto the table and set to work. 

The spell was simple enough, a banishing spell that most people learned their first year as witches, but it had tricky timing and the beast had to be within a certain radius for it to be effective. With the amount of ingredients he had, it would need to be quite close. 

He did some quick mental calculations and his hands worked at light speed putting them together. A crash downstairs told him he had mere seconds. When the door burst open to reveal the bulk of the largest hellbeast he’d ever seen, he dropped the last of the lavender into the bowl and grasped the edges. 

The spell was quick and worked quicker. A flash of blinding light sent the beast back where it belonged with a snap and a puff of smoke, leaving them in stunned silence.

Loki dropped the bowl with a clang and turned to his brother, kneeling at his side, pulling at the skin of his face to look at his eyes, checking his pulse, and laying the back of his hand against his forehead to check for fever. 

Thor looked at him and he looked so stricken that Loki nearly wanted to cry. “Loki, am I a bad witch?”

“No,” Loki shushed him immediately, standing and offering his hand. “I mean, you could study a bit more and you could stand a bit of practice, but you’re not a bad witch.”

Thor sniffed miserably and allowed him to pull him upright. “I just wanted to be like you.”

“Like me?” Loki scoffed. “Who told you that was a good idea? How much of this is yours, by the way?” he nodded at the blood that was all over Thor’s sweater. 

“I think it’s mostly mine,” said Thor, frowning and plucking at it with a rather detached sense of macabre.

Loki hummed and took his elbow, steering him to the stairs and down to the kitchen where he could patch him up. Thor sat quietly on the counter while he cleaned the scrapes and cuts and tossed the sweater in the trash. 

He set the final bandage in place along his brother’s ribs and paused. “Do you really want to be like me?”

And Thor shrugged and said, “You’re the best person I know. Of course I want to be like you.”

*


	12. Sun is for vampires, silver for werewolves, what is for you?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Russian translation:** [От вампиров - солнце, от оборотней - серебро. А что одолеет тебя?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28901088)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally started with a very sad prompt for this and could NOT do it. ended up with this instead. :)

*

Cute.

That was the only word that popped into Thor’s head and bounced around, preventing any further coherent thoughts from forming as his brain struggled to come up with an answer to the questions he didn’t know how to ask yet.

There was just no other way to describe the black little puff of fur that sat in front of him, spitting mad and no more than 10lbs soaking wet.

“I’ve always wanted a cat, you know,” he suggested brightly, reaching out to scratch behind the overly large tufts of hair on it’s head that he assumed were ears. 

“Pet me and I will claw your eyes out.”

Loki’s irate voice coming from the little black bundle was too much. Thor burst into laughter and he laughed even harder when Loki pinned his ears back flat on his head and hissed at him. It was only when he looked like he might actually claw his eyes out that he forced himself to calm down. 

“Okay, okay, I’m done, I swear to god,” he promised even as another giggle escaped. “Okay, seriously.” And another. And then another. “Sorry!” 

“I should have known you would be _useless_ ,” Loki snarled, looking utterly pissed in a way only cats could look, his fluffy tail snapping back and forth like a switch. “Fine. Don’t help. You’d probably fuck it up anyway.”

Thor dissolved into laughter again as Loki jumped down from the dresser top and marched haughtily from the room on dainty paws. It was just so goddamned funny. Loki had messed up plenty of times before and usually at Thor’s expense, but for it to have backfired on himself this time was exactly the kind of poetic justice he deserved.

He spent a good fifteen minutes collecting himself before heading down to the kitchen to help his idiot brother. But not without making a big deal out of it first.

“Moooom!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, barricading the kitchen with the gates they used to keep their giant wolfhound, Fenris, from getting in the way. Loki was too small to get up and over them, although it didn’t stop him from trying. 

Thor entertained himself by sitting on the counter and filming Loki on Snapchat as he ferociously used his tiny paws to claw his way up the little gate and then lose strength half way up and drop to the floor. 

“You should come lift weights with me on Mondays,” Thor told him amiably. “Maybe you could clear the gate if you had some muscle to back you up. Although I don’t know if your strength translates into cat form.”

“Thor, what on earth—” Frigga came around the corner, a basket of laundry on her hip.

“Look, mom! Loki fucked up a spell again!” Thor pointed at his brother who was hissing at him again. 

“Oh no,” Frigga laughed sympathetically. “Loki, sweetheart, what did you do?” 

“You know what I did,” Loki said grumpily, his ire clearly muted for their mother’s sake but still very much there. “Maybe you should leave me as a cat so I don’t _kill_ Thor for being an asshole when you turn me back.”

“Thor, don’t tease your brother,” Frigga said sternly. “You’re going to get him out of this mess.”

“What?” Thor said just as Loki also cried, “what?!” 

“Hush,” Frigga said with a wave of her elegant but garden-worn hands. “Thor, you’ll need catnip. Loki, he’s not going to hurt you for goodness sake, stop acting like you’re going to die.”

“Are you sure he doesn’t need like, silver?” Thor asked, retrieving a pair of scissors to clip the catnip that she grew in tiny pots along the kitchen windowsill. “Or sunshine? Or garlic?” 

“Oh, stop.”

“Okay, what do I do?”

Thor followed her instructions and tried very hard not to continue laughing as Loki crouched defensively into a corner. It was a simple enough spell and with a snap and a cloud of purple smoke, Loki was back to human and sprawled across the kitchen tile in all his flannel-pajama clad glory. 

“See? Easy and painless,” said Frigga, looking at them proudly and giving Thor a kiss on the cheek and dropping one on Loki’s head. “Now apologize for being rude to one another and don’t forget to take the laundry upstairs when you go. I want it _in_ your dressers this time!” 

Thor was scowling now and Loki looked equally disgruntled as he climbed to his feet. 

“I mean it,” said Frigga, pausing in the doorway and narrowing her eyes at them. “Friends may come and go but—”

“—your brother is for life,” they finished in tandem. 

She smiled and was gone in a whirl of blonde curls and lavender. 

Thor waited until she was out of sight and then shoved Loki into the counter. Loki punched him. A small tussle ensued until finally—

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” said Thor, stopping with his hands in the air. 

Loki’s lip was bleeding, but he was pretty sure he was going to have a black eye so they were even. Kind of.

“Thanksforhelpingme,” Loki mumbled after a moment, not meeting his eyes. 

“What?”

“You know what I said, asshole,” he snapped and marched out of the kitchen. 

Thor listened to him stomp up the stairs, grinning to himself. Then he turned and began making popcorn for the movie they’d agreed to watch together later, knowing full well his brother would come slinking back down the stairs and curl up next to him on the couch after a while. 

Thor might not know anything about cat demon Loki, but he knew all the secrets there were to know about human Loki.

*


End file.
